Gas-Fired Boilers vs Oil-Fired Boilers: Which One is Best?

Are you going to buy a new house in the UK or are considering moving your house here or want to completely replace the heating system in your house but are not sure whether to choose a gas boiler or an oil boiler? In this article, we talked about what a boiler is, what a gas boiler is and how it works, the purpose of a gas boiler and its use of electricity, and why you should and should not choose a gas boiler. We also explained what an oil boiler is, how it works, its types, and why you should and should not choose an oil boiler.

If you are not a home heating systems expert, you may think that these heating systems are extremely complicated. As a home heating systems company, we are here to help you, as you may not know the details of your heating options. At Zara Heating, let us help you have a nice and warm home in the UK's piercing cold and winter months! We are just a phone call and e-mail away from you.

 

What Does the Boiler Mean and How Does It Work?

Before we talk about gas boilers and oil boilers, it would make the most sense to start with the basics and get an idea of ​​how a boiler works and what it is. Even if you have an idea of ​​what a boiler is, we must make sure it's the right idea.

A boiler is a part of the heating system that is responsible for heating the house by boiling water and turning that water into steam. The water heated by the boiler is light, inexpensive, and extremely safe, and it can carry the heat wherever it needs to go. Since water vapor is many times lighter than air, it does not need to spend a lot of energy to move. Also, boilers are as efficient as they are amazing. Here's why a boiler is so great:

• When your house is sufficiently heated, the steam from a boiler returns to the boiler in the form of water.
• When the water returns to the boiler, the boiler reheats it to turn it into steam, and the process starts over from scratch.
• Since the water returning to the boiler is already very hot, the boiler does not have to do a lot of work to turn it back into steam. The fact that the boiler does so little the second time around makes it extremely efficient.

 

What is a Gas Boiler and How Does It Work?

There are many different types of gas boilers, but the logic of gas boilers is the same, regardless of the type of production or model. Gas boilers are responsible for heating your home using gas. A gas boiler may choose the direct mains route or an LPG cylinder route to have gas. Which one to choose depends on the construction and model of the gas boiler.

The gas boiler you use must produce hot water directed to your central heating system and radiators to adjust the temperature of your home according to your wishes and needs. This boiler can operate directly through a boiler connected to taps and showers, or the hot water you obtain will be transported to a separate water tank and cylinder depending on the model and type of boiler you have (i.e., system or heat type gas boilers).

When you turn on the heating feature of your gas boiler, hot water is first pushed to each radiator in the gas boiler, then the circulation in the radiators in this gas boiler must be continuous or close to constant. Even if your gas boiler needs to occasionally add pressure to its radiators, the same water can be used repeatedly. Even if the water used will have lost most of its heat when it passes through all the radiators, it will regain its old temperature inside the boiler before re-entering the same circulation. You can also understand whether your central heating is on by using the thermostat on your gas boiler, which helps keep the temperature of the house almost constant within a few degrees on either side of the temperature you have chosen, and if it is not, you can turn on the central heating with the help of this thermostat.

 

What are the Purposes of the Gas Boiler?

Although the primary purpose of gas boilers is to heat the house, the secondary purpose of these boilers is to heat water. Gas boilers, which realize their second purpose in the same way as their first purpose of realizing central heating, achieve both purposes by pumping heated water above the flame and have two ways to achieve this. The first form is to have hot water for immediate use, as in combi boilers, while the second is to heat the water in the tank, such as a system boiler or a heating boiler. Whatever method is used, this water heated by flame is not the water coming out of the tap, this water is only used as a medium to heat the water you use.

 

How Does a Gas Boiler Heat Water?

A gas boiler has several different components, including the gas burner, heat exchanger, and flue. Although the general purpose of all these components is to heat your home and the water used in your home, they all have different functions. The so-called primary components are the gas burner and the heat exchanger. A gas boiler including these components works like this:

• The gas to be used to heat the house enters the combustion chamber in the boiler with the help of a valve.
• The gas burner is responsible for burning the gas to heat your home and provide your home with general hot water, and it does just that.
• The water heated in the gas chambers passes through a channel inside the gas chamber with the help of the heat exchanger, and the heat is safely transmitted to the water.
• After the heated water is pushed out of the boiler by a pump or fan, it can be sent to the heating system, a separate boiler cylinder, or a storage tank.
• Regardless of the model of the boiler combi you have installed in your house, it must be connected to an external component of your house with a chimney, or a waste pipe used to take the gas out. This waste pipe or chimney safely discharges by-products such as water vapor and carbon monoxide, while keeping you healthy.

 

Do Gas Boilers Require Electricity to Work?

Although the general purpose of gas boilers is to heat water and keep your home warm, although they also use gas these boilers, they still need electrical power to operate. While this may sound unusual, the intended use of electricity is only to help certain items in your central heating systems operate and function. In addition, since even the valve that opens to provide gas flow to the combustion chamber works with electricity, it is quite normal to think that application-controlled smart boilers will also work with electricity.

 

Why You Should and Shouldn't Choose Gas Boilers?

For your gas boilers to have gas when you choose gas boilers, they must be connected by a heating systems specialist to a gas line that also serves the rest of your neighborhood. When you need to heat your home or heat the water in your home, natural gas is pumped directly into your home gas boiler and used as fuel to heat your home or water in your home.

Why Should You Choose Gas Boilers?

We can list why you should prefer gas boilers as follows:

• When you use oil boilers, you need to pre-order fuel for oil boilers, but you do not need to pre-order gas when you choose gas boilers. In other words, it is possible to use gas boilers whenever you want. This will also help you with your urgent needs.
• Although both oil and gas prices may fluctuate, the price of gas is generally more stable and cheaper than oil prices. That's why you can save money when you use gas boilers.
• We can easily say that natural gas is more environmentally friendly than oil, even though this statement is undeniably true. In addition, according to Annual Fuel Use Efficiency (AFUE) documents, an estimated 90 percent efficiency is achieved when natural gas boilers are used. So, you can both have an efficient boiler and save our planet.

Why You Shouldn't Choose Gas Boilers?

Let us explain why you should not prefer gas boilers as follows:

• The most important thing to know when using gas boilers is that you must be connected to a municipality's gas supply, so if you live far from the municipal gas supply, even if you buy a gas boiler for your home, it is not possible to benefit from it. If you are going to use a gas boiler, you should know that the only way to get gas for the boiler in your home is to depend on the municipality.
• If you want to use a gas boiler, you need to connect your gas boiler to the municipal main lines, which can be extremely expensive as piping needs to be installed. In addition, gas boilers need to be serviced and repaired more frequently than other systems.
• Carbon monoxide leaks, which are usually rare and unlikely to happen to you, can occur especially when you cannot properly maintain your gas boiler and system. If you do not maintain your gas boiler and system, you may experience carbon monoxide poisoning or cause explosions and fires that will affect the people living around you.

 

What Does Oil Boiler Mean?

You want to find the best oil boiler for your home, but if you don't know how to find out which oil boiler is good or not, first you need to find out what type of heating system your home heating system is. More than eighty-five percent of homes in the UK use gas boilers for central heating and hot water. Although it seems extremely unnecessary to use oil boilers, since seventeen out of twenty people are gas boilers, there are regions where oil boilers are also used. Oil boilers are especially ideal for homes that do not have access to municipal gas networks, and oil boilers are still frequently used for central heating and hot water needs of remote and rural homes.

Oil boilers, whose popularity has decreased over the years, can still be sold and used cheaper than heating systems working with electricity and LPG. Mechanically speaking, the main difference between oil boilers and gas boilers is that they both store the fuel differently. So gas boilers and oil boilers work the same way.

We have already mentioned why people living in remote areas do not have access to gas boilers, but let's talk about it briefly. The most important reason why gas boilers are not used in remote or rural areas is that the fuel used by gas boilers comes from the national network, oil boilers are used in these regions because there is no access to this national network in remote areas. If you want to use an oil boiler, it will be sufficient to have an oil tank for these boilers that will be located in a large place such as a garden or basement. However, you should not forget that this oil tank should be changed regularly.

 

Why You Should and Shouldn't Choose an Oil Boiler for Your Home?

We mentioned that the most important difference between oil boilers and gas boilers is storage. If you are going to use an oil-based boiler, you need to have an oil tank in your home, garden, or warehouse. Now let's look at why you should and shouldn't choose an oil boiler for your home.

Why Choose an Oil Boiler for Your Home?

We can list why you should choose oil boilers as follows:

• Oil boilers are more popular whereas gas boilers cannot be used easily. For example, there may not be natural gas in your neighborhood or the pipelines in your house may not be connected to the natural gas line passing through your neighborhood, in these cases, you cannot use gas boilers, but there is no such requirement for using oil boilers. All you need to use oil boilers is to have an oil supplier near you, so you can order, receive and store oil for your boiler.
• When oil boilers are used, the first thing that comes to mind is that petroleum products are not good for the world and are not green. However, some companies have progressive mindsets and are producing cleaner-burning biodiesel-blended petroleum instead of traditional petroleum products. Since biodiesel blends are also extremely domestic, you do not have to buy from foreign oil sources, and you benefit from extremely green petroleum resources.
• If you are using an oil boiler and have filled your oil tank, you do not need anything else to heat your house and heat the water. Since you are not connected to anything, you do not have to deal with problems such as electricity and gas line connections. In addition, even when you have a gas boiler, it is possible to heat your home by using oil boilers, which are a backup system.

Why Shouldn't You Choose an Oil Boiler for Your Home?

Let us explain why you should not choose oil boilers as follows:

• If you are sure that you will not be able to fill the oil tank with new biodiesel mixtures that you will use in your oil boiler system, it would be best not to use the oil boiler system because in this case, you will be doing a lot of damage to the environment.
• You don't need to do anything for storage in gas boilers, but if you are going to use oil boilers, you must have an oil tank. This is extremely risky as it will mean that you will have a limited amount of fuel until your next oil supply. In addition, when there is any leakage in your tank, you will face huge problems in terms of heating and hot water.
• If you are a forgetful person, oil boilers may not be suitable for you because if you are going to use an oil boiler, you will have to remember to order the amount of oil you will use regularly and check how much you use frequently. In addition, if you are faced with a big storm and your oil tank is exhausted in this case, you may not be able to obtain oil and you may not be able to heat your house.

 

Zara Heating is a leading home heating service provider, specializing in gas-fired boilers and oil-fired boilers. Our team of professionals will ensure that your new heating system is installed correctly to ensure it runs efficiently and safely. With years of experience, we deliver an outstanding service to our clients. We are your local, registered, and qualified gas installer providing a range of energy-efficient heating products at an affordable price with an after-sales service you can rely on.

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